Managing Your Email

Outlook 2007 provides a few ways for you to manage your mailbox. This document will instruct you on how to manage your email using these methods. By flagging important incoming messages, controlling the status of messages, and customizing the subject lines of new mail, you can more easily keep your folders organized. This document covers the following topics:

Flagging Messages for Follow Up

If you receive many email messages and cannot immediately respond to them all, you may want to flag them to follow up on the messages later. Flags correspond with a certain date which you choose. Flagging a message adds it to your To-Do list categorized by date, and also adds a red flag next to the message in the message list. Flags that are not set for the near future (within a week) are transparent and turn red when the follow up time nears. Outlook 2007 provides you with a few commonly used options for flagging, as well as a custom flag utility for more specific organization. You can also add reminders to your flagged messages.

Flagging Messages for Follow Up: Quick Option

Outlook 2007 provides a few simple options for flagging quickly.

From the listing of messages, select the message you want to flag

From the Actions menu, select Follow Up » select the appropriate optionORRight click the message you want to flag » Follow Up » select the appropriate option NOTES:
A flag appears next to your message in the message list and the message is added to your To-Do list.
If you select Custom... refer to the following section.

Flagging Messages for Follow Up: Custom Option

You can choose to customize your flags to associate them with a more specific time in your To-Do list. You can also add reminders to your flagged messages.

From the listing of messages, select the message you want to flag

From the Actions menu, select Follow Up » Custom... OR
Right click the message you want to flag » Follow Up » Custom...
The Custom dialog box appears.

From the Flag to pull-down list, select the appropriate flagging option

From the Start date pull-down list, select the appropriate day

From the Due date pull-down list, select the appropriate day

To add a reminder to the flag,

Select Reminder
The option is selected if a checkmark appears.

Select the desired date and time you want to be reminded from the corresponding pull-down lists

Click OK
A follow up flag appears in the Flag Status column of the message list.

Marking Follow Up Messages as Completed

From the Actions menu, select Follow Up » Mark CompleteOR
Right click the message you want to flag » select Follow Up » Mark Complete
Your flag will now turn into a gray checkmark showing the task is complete.

Removing Follow Up Flags

From the Actions menu, select Follow Up » Clear Flag OR
Right click the message you want to flag » select Follow Up » Clear Flag
The follow up flag disappears.

Changing Message Status

For better organization of your email messages, it may be beneficial to change your email status from read to unread or vice versa.

Changing Message Status: Menu Option

From the listing of messages, select the desired message(s)HINT: To select multiple messages, hold [CTRL] while clicking the desired messages.

To mark the message(s) as read, from the Edit menu, select Mark as Read
To mark the message(s) as unread, from the Edit menu, select Mark as UnreadOR
To mark all of the messages in the mailbox as read, from the Edit menu, select Mark All as Read

Changing Message Status: Quick Menu Option

From the listing of messages, right click the desired message » Mark as Read or Mark as Unread

Adjusting Subject Lines for Easy Reference

With the option to change the subject headings on incoming mail, you have more flexibility for organization. If you want a message to go into a folder that is based on subject heading, but that message does not fit the criteria, you can change the message's subject heading.

From the listing of messages, double click the desired message
The message window opens.

Select the words in the subject heading

Type the new subject heading

From the Office button menu, select CloseOR
Click the X in the upper right corner
An alert box appears asking if you want to save changes.